Theresa May is in Hangzhou for G20. I look forward to interpreting for her. She’ll be the fifth UK Prime Minister for me. G20 has taken over the city of Hangzhou. There is blue sky, very little traffic and hardly any tourists. The hills and trees around the West Lake are ‘designer-lit’ at night to provide the back drop. At breakfast yesterday, I heard a six year old boy ask his dad ‘what is G20’. Dr Kevin Lin
‘According to legend, the woks in Sichuan are very spicy, and it turns out that it’s true. We were in a restaurant and ordered stir-fried cauliflowers and asked them to hold on the chilli. The waitress promised to let the chef know personally. Ten minutes later, our cauliflowers arrived infused with plenty of chilli. We called the waitress. She was embarrassed, apologized and promised to bring a replacement. We said ‘ABSOLUTELY no chilli’. She repeated this to the chef. Ten minutes later, our replacement cauliflowers arrived. They still featured at least three chillies. We decided that this was as ‘absolutely no chilli’ as the chef could possibly make it. Otherwise, the food was great.’ Dr Kevin Lin
‘One of the students in my interpreter training class in Shanghai was an in-house translator/interpreter at Jaguar Land Rover. She told me today that her boss complimented her on the improvement in the quality of her interpreting. Eleven days of hard work paid off. She was very happy. So was I.’ – Dr Kevin Lin
The annual Post-MA Professional Training kicks off today. The training is designed to bring participants as close as possible to the KL standard of professional interpreting. All twenty of them are from leading universities in the UK – Surrey, Bath, Nottingham, Leeds and Durham. They’ll be in our office twice a week to receive training and testing, and will also need to complete a substantial amount of homework at the end of their working day. An essential part of the training concerns professional standards and so participants will be subject to the same rules and requirements of KL staff interpreters. At the end of November, the very best participants will be offered full-time contracts and will join the KL team in the New Year.
Kevin starts his annual summer series of interpreter training courses in China today. In addition to Beijing and Shanghai, he’s adding Chengdu in central China this year. The courses are hosted by Ce Ma, the leading translator and interpreter training organisation in China. They are run during university winter and summer holidays to allow interpreter wannabees on campuses to receive training directly from Kevin. The training is as intensive as it is effective. Here is the proof – two of our current staff interpreters were recruited from participants of previous courses.
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